How Should Albatross Anchor Overcome Its Business Challenges Case Study

How Should Albatross Anchor Overcome Its Business Challenges - Case Study Example The current time management process at Albatross Anchor is poor and outdated. There are a lot of inefficiencies in manufacturing. The changeover time required from one anchor type to another is as large as 36 hours. This implies that the company may be spending more time in set-up rather than manufacturing. No doubt the lead time of the products manufactured by the company for bulk orders is 3-4 weeks. These inefficiencies in time management have a huge impact on its profit margins and customer satisfaction.The most obvious and the best way of time management is to reduce set-up time. It is recommended that Albatross Anchor uses SMED (Single Minute Exchange of Dyes) methodology. The idea behind this methodology is to reduce set-up time to less than a minute (which was later modified to a single digit). It may not be possible to literally reduce the set-up time to a single digit. The aim should reduce the set-up time realistically to as low as possible.SMED can be applied by Albatross Anchor by identifying the activities which can be performed externally i.e. not within the machine set up. These activities need to be performed before the changeover is required. This means deploying certain resources for performing these external activities in parallel while the other resources are working on the machine for current operation. All the wastes should be eliminated and each operation should be optimized. If Albatross can afford to make the capital investment, it needs to go for equipment which has the same basic parts and requires only a change of few parts (dyes) while changing over from one anchor to another. By following such steps, Albatross Anchor should be able to reduce its set up time from 36 hours to less than an hour.One of the biggest challenges in front of Albatross Anchor is the use of obsolete technology. Moreover, technology is not being used for several operations. This leads to safety issues, poor quality, long lead times, long set-up times, efficie ncy losses and customer dissatisfaction.The biggest need at the moment is to adopt the latest manufacturing technology.

Critical reading assignment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Critical reading assignment - Essay Example The scientist argued that the Jews-Muslim convivencia had contrasting political motives or goals. Some state that Jews and Muslim existed in fully harmony that time. Others state that they were under pressure all the time, and their rights were impaired. For better understanding the Jews position, Cohen in his article used a comparative approach, and in such way explained lots of gaps. Undoubtedly, it was the period of harmony existence of the Jews and the Muslims, but nevertheless there were some restrictions and exceptions. Cohen tries to show how different were life the Jews in Islamic and Christian world. According to the article, Jews had lots of rights in Muslim world, they were well informed and took part in Muslim courts and economic life, and at the same time their position among the Christian were between the horns of dilemma (Cohen 4). According to the archives, it is possible to make a conclusion that the Jews adopted in some way the elements of culture of the Muslims. It to study the culture of Jews carefully, it is possible to find many similarities between their culture and the culture of Muslims. Those who lived in the Christian lands suffered along the whole history. Those who lived in Ashkenazic world suffered much less than historians stated in theirs book. Cohen provides in the article much approval concerning this point. He claimed that they had rights; moreover, they had integrated some Christian motives into Judaism as well. It is essential to pay attention to what attitude Islam and Christianity had to the Judaism. Speaking about religion, Islam treated Judaism much more positively than Christianity. If we read the New Testament we can find that Jews were rejected on theological basis. The Qur’an is not rejecting religious pluralism, but at the same time considers Islam to be the prevailing religion. The difference is that Islam is monotheistic religion, as opposed to the Christianity, with its Trinity. The other significant diffe rence is that Muhammad died naturally in contrast to the Christ, who was crucified. These differences caused quite different attitude to the Jews and their position among the Reconquista Spain and the Ashkenazic lands (Cohen 4). The Jews had a legal status in Muslim world. They had to pay some per year taxes, they had no restrictions on the manifestation of their religion, they only had to wear a special clothes, in order to be recognized among Muslims. They were trusted enough to hold the official positions. There was a period when both the Jews and the Christian can participate in the political life of the Islamic states. They could be translators or diplomats. Cohen in his article pays especial attention to the economic factor. The Muslims and the Christians had absolutely different approach and attitude towards the Jews. The Jews were associated with luxury, they were international traders. But later they Christians developed bad attitude towards them. Quite different attitude c ould be noticed in the Islamic world. They not only served some goods, but also had some functions, wrote letters etc â€Å"For other reasons, too, Jews occupied a more stable and enduring place in the social order of Islam than they did in northern Christian Europe. Islam, like Christendom, is a hierarchical society. Jews occupied a place on the hierarchical ladder-- a lowly place but a place nonetheless. The same was true of Christendom in the early middle